Totally agree with you. Using a helpdesk system does have a positive impact - I no longer need to track every mail, tweet & facebook conversation listening to customers & potential customers.

Which helpdesk systems did you evaluate & did you find them very different? I have been evaluating Zendesk, Freshdesk & more recently Assistly.

For a starter Assistly pricing is very attractive to me. But other than that do you find marked difference in terms of the support process for those that you evaluated?

When we first started the process I was evaluating both Tender Support (http://tenderapp.com/) and Uservoice (http://uservoice.com/fullservice). Overall I preferred the way that Uservoice worked although there were a number of limitations at the time to how you could brand your help page.

Then we moved to Zendesk and used them for several months. Overall we were incredibly pleased with the process, although I was not a fan of their public support portal unless you use their API to roll your own.

Three weeks ago we setup an Assistly account and were instantly blown away at how they simplified the process of providing support, and added the ability to easily create complex business rules. When you're using Assistly it feels more like an native application full of keyboard shortcuts rather than a website. In short Assistly isn't a chore to use.

Plus, Assistly has some of the best support for their customers.